Binge Eating Disorder Recovery – a tough week

Posted February 25, 2016

Beginning to earnestly work on my recovery again has reminded me of a sad but essential fact – working toward recovery is exhausting – and that’s only after four days. It has reassured me as to why I took hiatus for the time I was wrapped up in studying.

I’ve thought of nothing else all week except recording my food intake – should it be this consuming? Last night I went out for a few drinks with friends which, unsuprisingly, ended in a food-related disaster. I ordered enough food for two people upon my return. In some ways I have to acknowledge the improvement: it’s not that long ago that it would have been enough food for four people – truly. I’m going to explain a couple of elements of this experience.

Firstly, I’m aware that I left the social gathering early purely to eat. I wasn’t hungry, I didn’t need to leave but there was a choice to be made between spending my remaining money on alcohol with friends or on a surfeit of food alone – the food won.

Secondly, let me describe to you the state of mind of someone who has given in to a binge, because a somewhat obvious question is why did I just not go through with it? Why didn’t I simply not order food and go to bed? It’s hard for someone without BED to understand. There are two elements that combine once the binge is set. It’s as if there is no further thoughts in my mind. there is nothing else. the best way I can describe it, is like being in suspended animation once the money has been spent on the binge food. I don’t exist, I don’t have negative thoughts, I don’t have positive thoughts; I don’t have any thoughts, I just am. Cutting in to that lack of dialogue and reversing my decision, indeed doing any processing at all, just does not appear to be an option.

The other factor is the contemplation of a day that doesn’t end in whatever I decide to eat. It’s an indescribable feeling, like that feeling as a child that there is someone in your bedroom at night but you can’t quite see them, you just know they’re there, lurking, half formed in the shadows full of malicious intent. It’s the fear that the entire world of creepy pasta preys on. That fear makes me dread the end of a day if it has not contained a binge – as if there is something wholly wrong with my world. I know for a fact that’s not how ‘normal’ people feel about food. they have their dinner. then they wake and have breakfast. they might look forward to a meal but the access to it does not determine whether the day has been a bearable one or not.